WELLING EVENING TOWNSWOMEN'S GUILD

Mrs D Baldwin and Mrs K Harding entertained our members at our July meeting with their talk entitled "Just a bit of Chanting". Mrs Baldwin and Mrs Harding, both teachers, explained how rote learning and chanting formed the basis of education from the 18th century onwards. At that time small schools, evangelical, Quaker, charity etc., were being established by local benefactors for the poor. In Victorian times, the upper classes were educated at home by a governess or private tutors or the boys sent to Eton, Winchester, Rugby etc., by 1880 free edu-cation for five to ten year olds was introduced of the end of the 19th century that education be-came more widespread and most adults could read and write.

We were shown slides of ragged schools and could appreciate how this very rigid form of learning was necessary because of large class sizes. Our speakers illustrated their talk with slides and singing nursery rhymes and commented that it now thought that children learn best in happy surroundings. Our speakers were thanked for their informative talk and for enabling us all to recall our own time in school.

Our guild representative who attended the recent National Conference of TG Guild gave us a report on the proceedings and said how impressed she has been with the event.

It was noted that the Guild's holiday to Switzerland and the Lakes of Italy had been a great success and members had thoroughly enjoyed the magnificent scenery.

The next meeting of the Welling Evening TG is on Friday August 2 at 7.30pm at Welling Li-brary Hall, Bellegrove Road, Welling when the guild will enjoy a social evening followed by a plant sale. new members/visitors can be sure of a warm welcome.

July 17, 2002 16:30